Easter

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Easter

In the UK, schools close for about two weeks at Easter time. Read on to find out more about how Easter is celebrated in Britain.

Instructions

Do the preparation task first. Then read the article and do the exercises to check your understanding.

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Preparation

What does it mean?

Easter is a spring festival of new life. As a pagan tradition, it is the beginning of growth and new life after the cold, winter months. The name comes from the Anglo-Saxon goddess of the dawn and spring – Eostre. For Christians, Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ and practising Christians attend special church services at Easter time. Easter celebrates life and rebirth, which is why we see lots of symbols of new life and fertility at Easter, like eggs, chicks and rabbits.

When is it?

Unlike Christmas, Easter isn’t on the same date each year. It takes place on the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring. Schoolchildren and students in the UK have about a two-week holiday at Easter time, which is almost as long as the Christmas holiday. It’s also the first public holiday after Christmas and everyone looks forward to their Easter break as a moment to relax, have a short holiday or visit family and friends.

Chocolate eggs

For most British children, Easter means chocolate Easter eggs. The shops are full of bright Easter displays decorated with chicks, rabbits and flowers, all with the objective of selling chocolate eggs in huge numbers. And it works! 90 million chocolate eggs are sold in the UK each year and each child receives on average eight chocolate eggs.

However, the eggs are sold in cardboard boxes and sometimes there’s more packaging than chocolate! Also, some people believe that too much chocolate is eaten and most doctors and dentists would advise people to eat Easter eggs in moderation.

Other 'egg-straordinary' traditions

In the UK, chocolate is definitely the most popular way to enjoy eggs at Easter. But there are some less sugary traditions, too. Chickens’ eggs are painted and decorated to give as presents, and eggs are also hidden for children to find as part of an 'egg hunt'. Some places even hold competitions to see who can roll an egg down a hill without it breaking!

There are other special foods too. Hot cross buns are typical cakes that are made at Easter time. They are spiced bread rolls with raisins and they always have a cross shape on top. They are delicious toasted with butter.

Discussion

Comments

In Ukraine, we celebrate Easter with decorating our houses with colored eggs. There is also a tradition to paint empty eggs, which are called "pisanki". People also go to church and after that share painted eggs and easter- cakes with each other.

Easter is celebrated in my country, as well, but we have just a few days off from school and traditionally it is considered to be quite religious festival. Not everybody celebrate it the same way, but usually people eat Easter eggs and spend time with their families. it is also some kind of sign of spring coming soon when it starts to be a little warmer compared to our weather conditions in the winter time.

In Myanmar,Easter is not celebrated.But it sounds fun with chocolate,colourful eggs and competitions.What a beautiful day! There’s a similar holiday in Myanmar.It’s called “Farmers’ Holiday “.It’s on 2nd March.It’s also a national holiday.But we don’t held competitions like Easter.We spend “Farmers’ Holiday” by doing nothing special.I wish Farmers’ Holiday would be celebrated widely.

in Iran we don't have Easter celebrate but instead of that we have Nowruz celebration that on that day they start a new year and we arrange seven things that their names is starts with "s" or "س" on a table linen.
on this day grand fathers or grand mothers gives handsel to their grandchild

Well , We celebrate Easter in Egypt in Monday not Sunday :D Here we call it Sham Al-Nessim and we color eggs and eat certain kinds of fish , but we celebrate it as an old feast of the pharaohs ,, Christians celebrates both Sunday and Monday ,, but their main feast is sunday ,, muslims don't have to celebrate it but only we celebrate it in Mondays only , by going out in picnics ,, going to zoo , etc